Lesson Five

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Lesson Five

• Love is a Fallacy
• ---- by Max Shulman

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Aims

1. To have a basic knowledge of the terms in logic.
2. To appreciate the humor in the story.
3. To analyze the structure of the story
4. To appreciate the language

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Teaching Contents

1. Special terms in logic
2. Detailed study of the text
3. Organizational pattern
4. The chief attraction of the story 
5. Language features
6. Exercises

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Time allocation

• Terms in logic (15 min.)
• Detailed study of the text (110 min.)
• Structure analysis (15 min.)
• Language appreciation (15 min.)
• Exercise (25 min.)

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Lesson Five

• I. Special terms in logic
• argument--a statement which is offered as an
  evidence or a proof.
• It consists of two major elements
• 1. conclusion
• 2. premises -- a previous statement serving as a
  basis for an argument.
• Conclusion is to be drawn from premises.

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Special terms in logic

• fallacy -- false reasoning, as in an argument
• a weakness and lack of logic or good sense in an
  argument or piece of reasoning

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fallacy

• Usually, an argument is correct (deductively
  valid) if the premises can provide enough
  conclusive evidence for the conclusion. Otherwise
  the argument is wrong. It is said to be
  fallacious.

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Special terms in logic

• Three kinds of fallacy
• 1. material fallacy -- in its material content
  through a misstatement of the facts.
• 2. verbal fallacy -- in its wording through an
  incorrect use of terms.
• 3. formal fallacy-in its structure through the
  use of an improper process of inference.

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False Analogy

• "High school should not require a freshman
  writing course . Harvard doesn't require a
  freshman writing course, and the students get
  along fine without it".
• --- The analogy is false because the two items
  don't have strong enough similarities to predict
  that what happens in one will happen in the other.

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Dicta Simpliciter

• "Everyone wants to get married someday."
• --- The example starts a logical train of thought
  with an assumption that is false. Not "everyone"
  wants to get married.

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Evading the issue

• There are a number of handy fallacies that people
  press into service to side step a problem while
  appearing to pursue the point. (????)

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1)Distraction

• "Suds ' n ' Puds is a great restaurant you can
  see how shining clean the kitchens are ".
• --- The example is called distraction because the
  reader's attention is drawn to the cleanliness of
  the kitchen instead of to the excellence of the
  food, which is usually the determiner of a great
  restaurant.

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2)Ad hominem

• "against the person". "poisoning the well"
• " Ms Bauer is a terrible English teacher. She
  always wears blue jeans"
• --- Instead of point out faults in teaching
  technique, it calls attention to things about a
  teacher as a person that are unrelated to her
  teaching performance.

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3)Ad misericordian (an appeal to pity)

• "Look at this fourteen-year-old child who's run
  away from home to hide her shame-- pregnant,
  unwashed, friendless. penniless, at the mercy of
  our social service agencies. Can you till claim
  that sex should be taught in the classroom?"

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3)Ad misericordian (an appeal to pity)

• --- In this shifty approach to argumentation, the
  writer gives tear jerking descriptions of the
  cruel opponents' victims in order to arouse
  sympathy from the reader.

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Hasty Generalization

• "Mr Wang's handwriting is terrible. Mr. Hu's
  handwriting is also terrible and you know how
  terrible men's handwriting is ."
• --- It applies a special case to general rule.
  That fact that certain person's handwriting is
  bad doesn't imply that all mens handwriting is
  bad.

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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc

• After this, therefore because of this"
• "The last five times that I've worn my white
  pants, something depressing has happened. I'm not
  going to wear those pants again!"
• -- This fallacy assumes that if event Y happened
  after event X, then X must be the cause of Y.

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Circular Reasoning

• or Begging the question
• "Juan is an impressive speaker because he always
  touches his listeners deeply."

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Circular Reasoning

• --- This problem occurs when the writer tries to
  support a claim by restating it in different
  words. You can tell this example is circular by
  considering this Why is Juan an impressive
  speaker? Because he touches his listeners
  deeply.? Why are Juan's listeners touched so
  deeply? Because he is an impressive speaker.
• impressive touching someone deeply

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reel back

• -- step away suddenly and unsteadily, as after a
  blow or shock
• When she hit him, he reeled back and almost
  fell.

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overcome -- be overwhelmed

• If you are overcome by a feeling, you feel it
  very strongly
• I was overcome by a sense of failure.
• He was overcome with astonishment.

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infamy

• wicked behavior, public dishonor, being shameful/
  disgraceful
• infamous
• well known for wicked, evil behavior.
• infamous action, wicked, shameful, disgraceful

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rat -- metaphor (Am. sl.)

• used for describing a sneaky, contemptible person.

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modulate

• adjust, vary the pitch, intensity of the voice
• Some people are able to modulate their voices
  according to the size of the room in which they
  speak.

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jitterbug --

• 1. a quick active popular dance of the 1940's
• 2. a person who did this sort of dance
• Am. sl.
• a person who is very nervous
• jitters -- n.
• jittery -- adj. nervous, unstable

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Frankenstein

• The young student in Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
  (1797--1851) romance of that name (1818), a
  classic horror story. Frankenstein made a
  soulless monster out of corpses from church-yards
  and dissecting-rooms and endued (??)it with life
  by galvanism.(????) The tale shows the creature
  longed for sympathy, but was shunned (??) by
  everyone and became the instrument of dreadful
  retribution (??)on the student who usurped the
  prerogative (??)of the creator
• http//frankenstein.monstrous.com/

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The main idea of this lesson

• It is about a law student who tries to marry the
  girl after suitable re-education, but he's been
  too clever for his own good.
• The narrator, Dobie Gillis, a freshman in a law
  school, is the protagonist

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Protagonist

• a law school student
• very young
• clever
• over-conceited -- cool, logical, keen,
  calculating, perspicacious, acute, astute,
• powerful, precise, penetrating

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Antagonists

• 1. Petey Burch -- pitiful, dump, roommate,
  faddist
• 2. Polly Espy --- beautiful, gracious, stupid

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III. Organizational Pattern

• 4 sections
• Sect. I para 1-3
• It is the author's note.
• 1. The author's idea about this story.
• 2. The author's idea about the purpose of this
  story.

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III. Organizational Pattern

• Sect II para. 4 --59
• the bargain between the law student and his
  roommate over the exchange of the girl,

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III. Organizational Pattern

• sub-divisions
• 1) p4 introduction of the narrator --
  protagonist
• 2) p5-21 introduction of the first antagonist --
  Petey Burch
• He downgrades his roommate, who has nothing
  upstairs.
• 3) p22 -- 27 introduction of he second
  antagonist -- Polly Espy

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III. Organizational Pattern

• 4) p 28--40 sounding out / finding out the
  relationship between Petey and Polly.
• 5) p.40 --59 unethical transaction over Polly
• The student gives the raccoon coat the roommate
  wants, and his roommate gives his girl friend in
  return. They have a kind of deal.

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III. Organizational Pattern

• Sect III. para 60 -- 124
• the teaching of 8 logical fallacies
• 10 sub-divisions
• 1. p60 --61
• a survey, first date with the girl, first
  impression of the girl. He tries to find out how
  stupid she is.

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III. Organizational Pattern

• 2. p62 -- 74 the teaching of Dicto Simpliciter
• 3. P75 -- 79 the teaching of Hasty
  Generalization
• 4. p80--85 Post Hoc
• 5. p86 --96 Contradictory Premises
• 6. p97--98 interposition, He wants to give the
  girl back.

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III. Organizational Pattern

• 7. p99 --104 Ad Misericordiam
• 8. p105--108 False Analogy
• 9. p109-- 114 Hypothesis Contrary to Fact
• 10.p 115--124 Poisoning the Well

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III. Organizational Pattern

• Sect.IV. para125 the ending of the story
• backfiring of all the arguments
• The girl learns her lessons too well. She uses
  all the logical fallacies to fight back her
  teacher.

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Pay attention to the change of his emotions

• 1. favoring her with a smile
• 2. chuckled with amusement
• 3. chuckled with somewhat less amusement
• 4. forcing a smile/ ground my teeth
• 5. croaked, dashed perspiration from my brow
• 6. bellowing like a bull

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IV. The chief attraction of this lesson

• It's humor
• The whole story is a piece of light, humorous
  satire, satirizing a smug, self-conceited
  freshman in a law school.

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IV. the chief attraction of this lesson

• Why
• 1) the title
• The title is humorous. The writer wants the
  readers to conclude that "love" is an error, a
  deception and an emotion that does not follow the
  principles of logic.

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IV. the chief attraction of this lesson

• 2) the author's note
• "spongy", "limp", "flaccid" are specific
  characteristics of his essay. He is joking, which
  indicates that the whole story is humorous.
• 3) the contrast --
• the law student the girl Petey
• boasting himself ----- downgrading the others
• the student ---- the girl

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IV. the chief attraction of this lesson

• 4) the ending of the story
• the raccoon coat which the law student despises
  and give it to his roommate for the exchange of
  his girl friend has finally become the rootcause
  of his losing his girl friend.
• 5) the clever choice of the names
• Pettey ---- pity
• Espy ---- I spy

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V. Language features

• 1. American colloquialism
• 2. Informal style
• short sentences
• elliptical sentences --- to increase the tempo
  of the story
• dashes
• 3. rhetorical devices

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V. Language features

• 4. sharp contrast in the language
• 1) the law student uses ultra learned terms
• standard English
• 100 correct
• 2) clipped vulgar forms, slang words
• gee, magnif, terrif, pshaw,
• 5. inverted sentences